Labor exec: Four out of every 10 firms not complying with safety standards

TACLOBAN — Some 40% of establishments in Eastern Visayas were found violating Occupational Safety and Health Standards (OSHS), an official of the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) said, citing preliminary inspection reports.

DoLE Regional Director Forter G. Puguon said that during the department’s inspection from July to October 2011, some four out of every 10 firms checked by the team had violated occupational safety standards.

“About 60% are compliant with OSHS upon inspection. At the end of inspection, their only option is to comply or else we will use our enforcement power to ensure compliance. There will be follow-up inspections next year to check their performance,” Mr. Puguon said.

Construction firms have been the priority of OSHS inspections. The team from DoLE inspected 898 establishments in the region’s six provinces during the period.

Next week, the DoLE will lead the organization of an OSHS provincial network in the bid to promote voluntary compliance of this standard among firms.

“We have been trying to implement occupational safety all these years through regulatory approach and it has not worked. We will use an alternative, creating a culture of compliance among all our establishments. The best way to achieve that is to bring in all the stakeholders in this tripartism and continue to dialogue,” Mr. Puguon said.

The formal organization and signing of agreements of OSHS networks (OSHNets) in provinces will be witnessed by Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz. The team will be composed of representatives from employers, workers and government officials.

“Occupational safety has been neglected in the past. We are just focused on the labor standards particularly the monetary aspects,” Mr. Puguon said.

OSHS aims to protect workers against the dangers of injury, sickness or death through safe and healthful working conditions, thereby assuring the conservation of valuable manpower resources and the prevention of loss or damage to lives and properties.

“The employers think that compliance with occupational safety entails so much expense. This can be done in inexpensive ways. Many in small industries are losing so much in terms of time and cost because the workplace is not organized,” Mr. Puguon said.

OSHS compliance is being eyed by Mr. Puguon as one strategy to avoid frequent adjustment of wages.

“The needs of workers and their families are the driving force why they always ask for salary increase. If they are healthy including their family, maybe we can stabilize the cost of living. If their cost of living is stabilized, we will only adjust wages after three or five years,” he added.

Healthy employees don’t have to spend so much on medication and generate more savings, which will ease pressures on regional wage boards to adjust wages every year, Mr. Puguon pointed out. — Sarwell Q. Meniano, Businessworld